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I'm Alan Partridge
Series 1 DVD cover
Genre	Sitcom
Creator(s)	Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci
Starring	Steve Coogan, Felicity Montagu, Simon Greenall, Phil Cornwell Barbara Durkin Sally Phillips Amelia Bullmore
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	13
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC 2
Original run	November 3, 1997 – December 16, 2002
Links
IMDb profile

I'm Alan Partridge is a British sitcom. Two series were produced, the first in 1997 and the second in 2002. Six episodes were produced for each series. Co-creator Armando Iannucci has expressed doubts about creating a third [1]. Steve Coogan stars as Alan Partridge.

Both series were written by Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci and Peter Baynham. They starred Coogan as Alan Partridge; Felicity Montagu as his faithful, mousey PA, Lynn Benfield; Simon Greenall as Geordie Travel Tavern handyman/BP garage attendant, Michael; and Phil Cornwell as Dave Clifton.

Contents 1 Characters 1.1 Both series 1.2 Series one only 1.3 Series two only 2 Series One 2.1 Episodes 3 Series Two 3.1 Episodes 4 Geography 5 See also 6 External links

• Alan Partridge (played by Steve Coogan). The main character of the series. A former chat-show host on BBC television, Alan was dismissed from the BBC for punching Chief Commissioning Editor Tony Hayers in the face with a chicken and because his programs were unwatchable television that started badly in the ratings and got worse. In series one, he is divorced from his wife Carol, lives in the Linton Travel Tavern and is reduced to working the graveyard shift on Norwich radio and desperately trying to get back on television in any capacity. By series two - following an off-screen mental breakdown - he has pulled himself up slightly, in that he lives in a static caravan next to the dream house he is building, has a radio show in the evening and a military-based quiz show on digital television and has published his autobiography. Alan is a generally loathsome, narcissistic human being with very poor social skills, a largely empty personal life and a very high opinion of himself.
• Lynn (played by Felicity Montagu). Alan's hard-working, long-suffering, personal assistant, Lynn appears to run Alan's life to such an extent that he cannot survive without her organisational skills; despite this, he usually treats her with little more than contempt. Besides dealing with Alan's working-life, Lynn's other duties range from the banal to the truly ridiculous; accompanying Alan to visit a show home, buying medicinal powder for Alan's fungal foot infections, cooling Alan with a hand-fan, and frequently listening patiently to Alan's pointless conversations and endless whining. Lynn is a member of a local Baptist Church, which Alan finds strange but is willing to tolerate. Her mother, whom Lynn possibly lives with, is apparently housebound, but Lynn seems able to balance her life between looking after her mother's affairs and those of Alan. When accompanying Alan, Lynn is very shy and nervous in public, but seems capable of easily blending into social situations when Alan is not present. Despite her intense and frequently ludicrous workload, Lynn receives a paltry £8,000 per year, due to Alan's greedy penny-pinching.
• Michael (Simon Greenall). An all-purpose worker at the Linton Travel Tavern, Michael speaks with a heavy Geordie accent, which Alan barely understands (or claims not to) and, being Alan, never fails to demand clarification. Michael is arguably Alan's only friend, and Alan is glad of his presence when he needs to have a heart-to-heart or, more often, inane chat; their friendship is clearly not on an even basis, however, as Michael only ever refers to Alan as 'Mr. Partridge' and Alan clearly regards Michael with a great deal of disdain. Michael is almost as desperate and neurotic a character as Alan, and is very emotionally disturbed (shown most clearly when Alan looks out of his room window to see Michael tearing at his hair in a state of some distress). Michael frequently tells stories of his time in the army, to the delight of Alan, especially if they are of a salacious, or violent nature. During a period of military placement in the Philippines, Michael married a Filipino woman, and the two moved back to Michael's native Newcastle-upon-Tyne. However, his wife left him and now lives with his brother in Sunderland, possibly shedding light on the origins of Michael's neuroticism. In the last episode, Michael appears at Alan's party already drunk on Scrumpy Jack and proceeds to insult the other guests. He also appears in the second series of "I'm Alan Partridge", where he has left the Linton Travel Tavern and now works in a BP petrol station.
• Dave Clifton (Phil Cornwell). A fellow Radio Norwich DJ. Because his programme begins at the end of Alan's "graveyard slot" show, it is seen (by all concerned) to be of "higher status", a fact which clearly perturbs Alan. During the handover every morning, Alan always engages in witty banter with Dave, but their chatting fails to disguise the bitter rivalry between them, and is only thinly veiled by their jocular chit-chat. Dave usually gets the better of Alan, but on at least one occasion Alan won their daily battle of one-upmanship (by swearing on what was technically Dave's show). Dave is an alcoholic and has a driving ban, according to Alan. Much to Alan's surprise and chagrin, Dave is a friend of Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley. Dave also appears in the second series of "I'm Alan Partridge", where he now works the graveyard shift (after Alan's shift) and appears to have resumed drinking - nevertheless, he still usually manages to get the upper hand in his rivalry with Alan.

• Susan (Barbara Durkin). The manager of the Linton Travel Tavern. Susan appears to be a stereotypical front-desk worker, with a dazzling smile and sickly sweet manner, but even these forced skills are not enough to deal with Alan's clumsy, half-hearted flirting and mindless anecdotes. Alan frequently makes tactless comments to Susan about her appearance (once suggesting to her that she "could have been throwing up all night" but that her smile would not falter). In reaction to these comments, Susan's painted-on smile is sometimes momentarily replaced by a look of shock and bemusement. Susan displays a general dislike of Alan, becoming increasingly bored of his feeble attempts at conversation as the series progresses, and at one stage being terrified by Alan's poorly-planned practical joke in which he dresses as a zombie and creeps up on her at reception. Nevertheless, she never says a harsh word to Alan - at least, until the end of the last episode, in which she finally tells Alan what she thinks of him at his going-away party.
• Sophie (Sally Phillips). A recently-employed receptionist at the Travel Tavern, Sophie is also rarely without a smile - however, in her case it is normally due to the fact that she is suppressing a laugh over Alan's antics. While Susan brushes off Alan's social faux pas with a smile, Sophie is rarely able to control her laughter at Alan's appalling lack of social skills, and often has to leave reception to prevent laughing in his face. Much to Alan's annoyance, he is sometimes aware that Sophie often jokes about him behind his back.
• Ben (James Lance). Another member of staff at the Travel Tavern and Sophie's boyfriend. Alan is jealous of Ben's romance with Sophie, and does his best to sabotage their romantic trysts. In later episodes, Alan attempts to forge a friendship with Ben, despite Alan's earlier irritation at Ben's informal and somewhat laid-back manner. Predictably, Alan's attempts to befriend Ben are clumsy and unsuccessful.

• Sonja (Amelia Bullmore). Alan's thick-accented Ukrainian girlfriend. Sonja, who is Alan's junior by fifteen years, possesses a very excitable, scatterbrained personality which has led her boyfriend to describe her as 'mildly cretinous'. Easily amused, she takes great delight in lame practical jokes and in showering Alan with cheap (and unwanted) gifts such as London souvenirs and personalized coffee mugs and cushions with their faces on. She is very devoted to Alan and clearly treasures him, despite the fact that he demonstrates little genuine affection for her in return and clearly bases their relationship solely around the boost to his ego that the fifteen-year age difference between them gives him.

In this series, the former chat show host Partridge has been divorced by his wife, Carol; has distanced himself from his children and ended up living in the Linton Travel Tavern, a cheap motel equidistant between London and Norwich. At this stage of his life, Alan's career consists of broadcasting his own radio programme, "Up with the Partridge" on the fictional "Radio Norwich" during dead time (4am to 7 am), and occasionally making corporate appearances for various low-profile local businesses. Alan's personal life is shown to be crushingly empty; he has separated from his wife Carol, and his only interaction with other people consists of chatting mindlessly to his personal assistant, Lynn, the staff of the Linton Travel Tavern, and receiving infrequent phone calls from Bill Oddie.

Throughout the series, Alan displays his usual sexism, racism, homophobia, and general bigotry to everyone he comes into contact with, and via his radio show broadcasts.

Two unusual plot devices used during the series surround Alan's somewhat neurotic personal life. One consists of glimpses into Alan's mind, depicting a fantasy night-club, which Alan seems to think of often and at the most inappropriate moments. In his club fantasies, Alan is a table dancer, dancing for whichever television authority he aims to please (usually Tony Hayers, but also two Irish TV executives he meets on one occasion). Even in these fantasies, Alan retains his unbearably boring and socially inept persona; he dances in a rubber thong but this is offset by wearing his jumper, shirt and tie in addition to his "erotic" apparel, and in his fantasies, Alan launches into his trademark dull and inane conversations. The second plot device used throughout the series revolves around a drawer in Alan's hotel room. The viewers never see what is in the drawer, but the contents are occasionally glimpsed by other characters; Lynn becomes speechless when seeing the contents, Sophie bursts into a fit of giggling, and Alan himself goes to extreme lengths to keep the drawer closed when people are in the room.

Series one was released on DVD in the United States for the first time on October 24, 2006.

• Room with an Alan: Alan and Lynn view a show-home, where Alan displays his usual behaviour, and manages to both confuse and bore the estate agent. Later in the day, Alan attends a luncheon at the BBC headquarters with Tony Hayers (played by David Schneider), the fictional programme commissioner of the BBC, about the possibility of a second series of Knowing Me, Knowing You. Apparently unaware of how low his chances really are, he puts the nail in the coffin by desperately offering a range of ridiculous, badly thought-out ideas for new programmes that bore, bewilder, and eventually upset Hayers. When he is told that he is not to be re-commissioned, Alan attacks Tony Hayers with a lump of cheese and flees the restaurant while shouting "I've got cheese, this is cheese!". After a heart-to heart with Lynn, Alan returns to his hotel room, attempts to order an Irish coffee, and gives himself a black eye while attempting an athletic leap from his bed.
• Alan Attraction: Without a second series of his programme, Alan is forced to fire all of the staff at his company, Peartree Productions. However, when the staff ask him if he has a second series, Alan panics, and tells them that he has been successful. While the staff prepare a party, and Jill, his ageing, chain-smoking, divorcee receptionist goes out to buy some snacks, Alan tries to extricate himself by firing staff members for various "offences"; leaving an unwashed coffee cup on the table; rolling eyes, and being a woman. While locked in his boardroom, the staff leave. Jill returns, wondering where everyone has got to (he doesn't tell her) and the two go on a date to a nearby owl sanctuary, where Alan's attempts at conversation bewilder Jill. In the evening, the two attend a Valentine's Day dinner at the Travel Tavern, where Alan makes a fool of himself by singing a song for her with the hired band, and Lynn repeatedly attempts to sabotage Alan's evening with the uncouth Jill. Alan and Jill return to Alan's room, and in one of the most memorable moments of the series, Alan attempts to make love to Jill while providing a running commentary and attempts a discussion of the pedestrianisation of Norwich city centre. After Jill's attempts at eroticism leave the room - and Alan - covered in chocolate mousse, Jill leaves and Alan goes to work, where he tells Jill over the radio that she is sacked.
• Watership Alan: After making various unsympathetic comments about farming on his radio show, Alan becomes an object of hatred for local farmers. But he doesn't have time to worry about this as he is more concerned with shooting an advertisement for a small boating-holiday company. In the tavern's bar, during an initial interview with the video executives, Alan panics and invents the ladyboy drink combination, the effects of which result in him spending the rest of the evening on the phone to his ex-wife Carol, trying to insult her partner's car. On his radio show, Alan interviews the leader of the local Farmers' Union (played by Chris Morris), but instead of apologising, enrages local farmers even further by making increasingly insane comments about farmers. On the day of the video-shoot, Alan attempts to blend in with the hard-drinking crew and again displays his chronic lack of basic social skills. During the shoot, riddled with examples of Alan's pathetic ineptitude, he is crushed by a dead cow thrown from a bridge by local farmers. Alan returns from hospital with a neck brace and broken fingers, and is forced to humiliate himself by phoning reception and asking them to reconnect the satellite connection on his television which he had previously had switched-off because the staff discovered he was watching pornography.
• Basic Alan: Throughout the episode, Alan is desperately bored and does various things to pass the time, including dismantling a trouser press, walking to a petrol station to buy several bottles of windscreen washer fluid and dressing up as a zombie in a poorly planned practical joke. His boredom culminates with an incompetent attempt to steal a traffic cone, with Michael and Lynn.
• To Kill a Mocking Alan: Alan hosts "An Afternoon with Alan Partridge" at the Travel Tavern which is attended by his "biggest fan", Jed Maxwell. He is also visited by network executives (played by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews) who are considering giving him a show on Irish television. Naturally, they are less than impressed by Alan. Through a series of mishaps, the three of them end up at Jed's house, where Alan finds out that Jed's fandom is of a somewhat extreme nature.
• Towering Alan: After a depressing afternoon hosting a small village fayre, Alan is delighted to discover that Tony Hayers has died and his successor, Chris Feather, is a man who had actually always supported, and liked Alan. Attending Hayers' funeral (he knows Feather will be there) he immediately snaps up the opportunity to finally win his sought-after second series.

The series ended with a party in Alan's room as Alan and Lynn tidied up to the theme from The Adventures of Black Beauty, after all the guests have prematurely left. The series ends on a surprisingly upbeat note, with Alan pretty pleased with himself.

By series two, we catch up with Alan five years after he left the Linton Travel Tavern. Despite winning a second series and a five-year contract at the end of the first series, bad blood between himself and the BBC forced Alan to leave once again. He himself admits that in the intervening time he'd been "clinically fed up", which culminated in him putting on a lot of weight and driving a Vauxhall Vectra to Dundee in his bare feet whilst gorging on Toblerones. By the start of this series, he believes himself to have "bounced back", titling his poorly-selling autobiography "Bouncing Back". As well as his book, he has Radio Norwich's 3rd best slot (his rival from Series 1, Dave Clifton, again follows his show, but this is now a 'graveyard' midnight slot), a military-based game show called Skirmish on fictional cable TV channel "UK Conquest" and has released a video called "Crash, Bang, Wallop, What a Video!"

Alan now finds himself living in a static caravan outside his partially built dream home. He is flanked by his friend Michael, who has left his job at the travel tavern to become a cashier at a local BP garage (this recalls Alan's odd question in the first episode of the first series to the estate agent, when he asked if there were any petrol stations near the house with minimarts - 'scaled down supermarket, fits inside a petrol station'). Alan now has two women in his life, not only is he still tended to by his personal assistant Lynn but he has a Ukrainian girlfriend, Sonja, played by Amelia Bullmore.

• The Talented Mr Alan: While visiting Michael at the petrol station, Alan has a chance meeting with his old teacher Frank "Sweaty" (or "Cacky") Raphael. Alan convinces him to let him do a talk for the sixth formers at the school he is now head teacher of, which, of course, all goes wrong, ending with Alan being besieged in the petrol station after insulting one of the teachers, a former schoolmate.
• The Colour Of Alan: Alan is asked to present a sales conference for Dante's of Reading, a company that fits fireplaces. An accident involving a sharp metal spike through his foot causes complications.
• Brave Alan: Alan makes a new friend at the BP garage called Dan (played by Stephen Mangan). They both like the same beer, use the same deodorant and both drive Lexi ("the plural of Lexus"). Dan owns Kitchen Planet, and sets it up so that Alan can present the Coleman's Mustard Bravery Awards. Later, at Dan's home, Alan finds out that Dan and his wife enjoy a secret lifestyle, to his great discomfort.
• Never Say Alan Again: Alan plans a Bond-athon for the bank holiday weekend with Michael. This all goes pear-shaped when Lynne destroys his Bond movies after spilling Sunny Delight over them. When he discovers that Michael has another friend, Tex (played by Peter Serafinowicz), he becomes jealous and falls out with Michael, telling him he can't come to the Bond-athon. Alan homes in on John the builder to be his new friend. Alan also decides to give the group a physical run through of the entire opening sequence of The Spy Who Loved Me.
• I Know What Alan Did Last Summer: Alan is worried about being investigated by Inland Revenue, and takes Sonja to Bono's house (really Blickling Hall) as a present.
• Alan Wide Shut: Alan's house is finally built and Sonja is angling to cohabit. He is interviewed on a radio show called Prayer Wave, after which he attends Lynn's christening at her church. Meanwhile, copies of Alan's unsuccessful book, Bouncing Back, are pulped.

All the places namedropped in I'm Alan Partridge are real locations in East Anglia. Linton and Longstanton are in Cambridgeshire, though neither has a Travel Tavern nor a spice museum. Swaffham is a market town in Norfolk, Spixworth and Hemsby a real Norfolk villages which feature in the show as the home location of phone in guests, and of course there's the city of Norwich. The (Great) Ouse and the Waveney are major rivers, as referenced in Radio Norwich's ident. Linton really is equidistant between London and Norwich (about 60 miles in each direction). Not all Norfolkers are happy with the association though. [2]

• Monkey Tennis

• BBC - I'm Alan Partridge
• British Sitcom Guide
• Phill.co.uk Comedy Guide
• BBC Comedy Guide
• Alan Partridge Forum
• I'm Alan Partridge - UK TV Schedules and Episode